Keeping extortion in the family

I haven't posted since TUESDAY? How did that happen? Has that ever happened, except for when we went to Cabo where apparently there is no internet service to be had?

I can explain, really. Wednesday night we had dinner with Jim who is a friend/business associate. He brought along his girlfriend Beth - now, Jim's wife up and left him and the kids a year ago, and really took it pretty hard. He's a nice guy. She felt like she "deserved better." Not exactly sure what about Jim wasn't to her liking anymore but anyhow, he's pulled himself up by his bootstraps and reconnected with an old high school friend (Beth) and brought her along.

We had fun. And a lot of pomegranate martinis. Oh wait, that was me....never mind. Hopefully everyone else had a good time too.

Then last night it was the Founder's Night dinner for Rotary - Joey got an award so we of course had to go. It was surprisingly fun and the food, for a catering facility, was fantastic. Don't even get me started on the bread pudding with chocolate chips in it and a buttery bourbon sauce and whipped cream or I will start moaning and people will think I'm doing bad things in my office. Like that's any different than normal.

Okay, so last time I posted I alluded to the fact that my in-laws are trying to extort $10,000 from us. Good times, good times.

Just to give you an idea of what we're dealing with, my MIL worked for a major textile manufacturer for 42 years and when her plant closed four years ago she was forced to retire and given a cash settlement. Well, her retirement plan was an ESOP and when the stock shares fell to under a dollar each, there went pretty much their retirement. Not to mention the fact that she burned through the cash settlement in under a year, buying things like dining room furniture that wasn't needed and lots of stuff off QVC. It was like every time we turned around she was buying something else stupid like a back massager. A $500 back massager. Do you realize how many massages you can buy in BFE for $500? Okay, I'm digressing....She finally got a job last year working for a family friend and I suspect she might make $10 an hour at the most. And it's not like there weren't jobs available, she was just too freaking lazy to get one.

FIL hasn't held a steady job in years. He had back surgery about 5 years ago and has basically laid around and gotten fat. Last year, he got a job as a substitute bus driver for the school system (not sure how he passed either the physical or the pee test) and does that once or twice a week.

Between them, they own a 1300 square foot house, 38 acres of land, three clunker vehicles, and have more debt than you can shake a stick at. Yes, I realize that they are on a fixed income and I don't hate them enough to make them suffer or deny them basic comforts (food, shelter, etc.)...but this is a little over the top. Okay, a lot over the top.

So last Saturday when we went to meet them for The Last Lunch, my MIL kept yammering on and on about their air conditioning that needed to be replaced. The figure of $10K kept being thrown out there, but I was so occupied with Monkey Man and ignoring my pissy FIL that I didn't pay a lot of attention. I did notice that FIL had bought the A/C guy's business card and gave it to Joey, but like I said - I was ignoring him.

On Tuesday, I was sitting at work and suddenly it hit me. Joey had been raising a little stink at home last week because, like most people, he has a "magic number" in the savings account that is where his comfort level is - and we are getting close to our July payout from the company and the last payout is almost gone. We did a lot of work on the house last year that ate big chunks of it up. And I get that - and I always cut back on the frivolous crap when we get close to the Magic Number just to keep peace. Well, from the conversation we'd had like 2 weeks ago where we had plenty of money in the account to last week's Doom and Gloom forecast, there was a huge drop. Like a $10,000 drop. Hmmmmm, coincidence? Hardly.

I stewed and stewed all day. Finally at dinnertime, I flat out asked Joey who was paying for his parents' air conditioning. Now, conversations about his parents usually don't go well so I picked a public place to have the talk so that at least we would both keep a civil tongue and keep the volume level down. So Joey tells me that he doesn't really know exactly what it's going to cost, but the A/C guy (who is a family member) quoted $4,000, and our friend from up here quoted $4,300 (travel time would be more). They need the ducts cleaned, a new air handling unit, and a new heat pump. And it's not being done on an emergency basis - their power bill was $400 last month and an inspection of the unit revealed that it has freon leaks everywhere so therefore it needs replacing. So they're not baking to death and it can be priced out and done on a normal billing basis.

Okay, so what about the other $6,000? Well, they want to do some stuff to the house. Like what, you might ask? And at this point, I would tell you that in the past 10 years we have paid for a new roof, new replacement windows, a new microwave, a new dishwasher, a deck, and we personally painted the outside of their house. This doesn't include money that Joey has given him on the sly (or at least he thinks I don't know about it).

Well, they want to clean out the basement and paint the inside of the house. For $6,000.

For $6,000? Hell, I'd do it myself for $1,000 if they would just leave us alone.

Joey said that he told them he would help with the air conditioning. But getting $6K to do stuff around the house that wasn't necessary (not to mention something we could do ourselves) was ridiculous. And really, I'm insulted that they look at us like their personal ATM.

So we haven't talked about it since. I did tell him that before he gives them the money, I want him to sit down with his dad and figure out what their debts are, what income is coming in, what their expenses are, and how they've gotten into this situation. I mean, don't people have savings accounts to take care of "emergencies"? And isn't needing your heat pump replaced considered an emergency? Why can't they take out a home equity loan? I'm more curious if they actually don't have the money, or if they do and are just trying to see what they can get away with.

And as bad as it seems, I almost hope that they're just trying to be skankballs and hold onto their money while they spend ours. Because if they're this freaking broke at 63 years old, it's going to be really hard for us to supplement them every time they have something come up. We have our own retirement and Monkey Man's college to think about, and while I'm not cold-hearted enough to make them roast all summer or freeze all winter, I resent the fact that it seems like more often than not they have their hands extended wanting more, more, more.

The worst part is that Joey is so stuck in the middle it's not funny. And it's not fair, either. Not fair at all.

Edited to add: He hasn't actually given them any money yet. Joey is infamous for going ahead and deducting the "big ticket" stuff mentally from whatever is in savings, so my guess is that they hit him up for the money last week and with his own Mental Accounting System therefore it means that we already have $10K less in the bank than what he had told me the week before. Strange, but that's him. Probably a good thing, because if I'd found out that he actually had gone ahead and given him that kind of money without talking to me first, Lorena Bobbit would have a new member of her fan club writing her from Cell Block D.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.